A Landmark Southern Baptist Association
R. L. Vaughn, 4 July 2025It is curiously intriguing that some modern-day Southern Baptists – particularly Southern Baptists with “anti-Landmark” sentiments – exert energy and effort to rescue their heroes from the charge of being “Landmark Baptist.” (For two quick examples of “rescuing” B. H. Carroll, see the notes below.i) Into this fray steps the Landmark Missionary Baptist Association of Shelby County.
I encountered this intriguing example of “rescue” – or plain old historical ignorance – when trying to ferret out the history of the Shelby-Doches Baptist Association (a local association of Southern Baptist churches in our area). The history of the Nacogdoches Association was clear enough to me. I was already familiar with it. However, I kept running into road blocks, into confusing and contradictory assertions regarding the “Shelby County” Association.ii Shelby-Doches Association organized in 1925 as a merger of the Nacogdoches and Sabine River Associations.iii So far, however, I have not seen a Texas Baptist historian identify the origin of the Sabine River Association, which obviously existed before it merged with the Nacogdoches Association. The Sabine River Association was organized circa 1902-03 as the Landmark Missionary Baptist Association of Shelby County, by a minority of Shelby County Missionary Baptist Association churches that wanted to maintain affiliation and cooperation with the Baptist General Convention of Texas.iv The 1909 meeting at Clever Creek was called the 7th Annual Session. After 1911 and by 1914, the name was changed to Sabine River Baptist Association of Shelby County.v
I suppose that historians have not deliberately suppressed the fact that the Southern Baptist split from the Shelby County Missionary Baptist Association was called “Landmark Missionary Baptist Association of Shelby County.” I suspect it is more likely that it has not crossed many minds that this was a group of churches supporting the Baptist General Convention of Texas and the Southern Baptist Convention.vi
It is provocative that the Southern Baptist minority – denominational supporters of the Baptist General Convention of Texas – on the same side as B. H. Carroll – took the name “Landmark,” a name which detractors say only identifies those who split from the Convention! They were denominational Landmarkers — whether or not it makes sense! In my opinion, this circumstance should give the naysayers pause when they try to separate “Landmark” as inherently distinct from “supporting the Convention.”vii
====================== Notes
i “...the only movement that Carroll did support which had Landmark influences was the Whitsitt Controversy; and although that controversy dealt with successionism, it was only a secondary issue for Carroll. Carroll did share some theological and historical views with the Landmarkists, but there were too many areas of disagreement to consider him a true Landmarker.” (Fighting the Good Fight: the Life and Work of Benajah Harvey Carroll, Alan J. Lefever, Austin, TX: Eakin Press, 1994, p. 75) https://archive.org/details/fightinggoodfigh0000lefe/page/74/mode/2up “If he was a Landmarker, he was a denominational Landmarker—and that doesn’t make sense.” (“B. H. Carroll defies narrow theological labels, historians assert,” The Baptist Standard, November 13, 2014) Alan Lefever is director of the Texas Baptist Historical Collection. https://baptiststandard.com/news/texas/disparate-baptists-cannot-exclusively-claim-carroll-legacy-historians-assert/ “While Carroll agitated for Whitsitt’s removal, he never fully embraced the Landmark understanding of Baptist origins as championed by his younger brother J. M. Carroll.” (“The Worst Decision B. H. Carroll Never Made: Southern Seminary, the Whitsitt Controversy & the Quest for Institutional Accountability,” Jason K. Allen; President of Midwestern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Kansas City, Missouri). https://jasonkallen.com/2013/09/the-worst-decision-b-h-carroll-never-made-southern-seminary-the-whitsitt-controversy-the-quest-for-institutional-accountability/
ii Perhaps exacerbated in part by several associations including the word “Sabine” in their names (Sabine, Sabine River, Sabine-Neches, Sabine Valley – and some confusing “Saline” and “Sabine.”
iii “Texas Associations,” J. D. Brandon, Encyclopedia of Southern Baptists, Volume II, Norman W. Cox, editor. Nashville, TN: Broadman Press, 1958, p. 1397. “According to previous agreement messengers of the churches of what had formerly composed the Nacogdoches Baptist Association of Nacogdoches County, Texas and the Sabine River Association of Shelby County, Texas met here at the Baptist Church of this village [Martinsville, Nacogdoches County, Texas] to organize the Shelby-Doches Baptist Association, to cover the territory of the two counties.” (Minutes of the First Annual Session of the Shelby-Doches Missionary Baptist Association, October 8-9, 1925, p. 3)
iv “Circa” because I have not found the organizational minutes. 1902-03 is based on the dating of the annual sessions.
v See minutes held in the collection at the A. Webb Roberts Library of Southwestern Seminary, Fort Worth, Texas.
vi Thereby never bothering to make the connection.
vii It is my understanding that the entire ministry of Landmarker “J. R. Graves” was spent in the Southern Baptist Convention.======================
[From R. L. Vaughn, https://baptistsearch.blogspot.com/ - Scanned and formatted by Jim Duvall.]
More on Various Baptist Subjects
Baptist History Homepage